The Pope’s “directness and frankness” play a strong role in causing this reaction from people, but what is key, the Bishop felt, is “he speaks from the Gospel and is leading us back to the Gospel.”
The Gospel, the Bishop expounded, “needs to be what moves us.” It is in the Gospels especially that we come to know we are loved and that with Jesus life becomes richer. It is in the Gospel where we hear of Jesus’ mandate for all of us to go out to the world.
Stressing how Pope Francis “presents with a sense of urgency,” Bishop Barnes built on this when comparing the Old Testament model of people coming to the Temple, those of lower status coming to the one of higher status, to the New Testament model of sending. Even though Jesus is King of Kings, the one with the highest status to whom we come in great humility, Jesus also stated very clearly that he came to serve and not to be served. Jesus calls us to be mission, to go out in to the world, and the Bishop asked us as educators to reflect on and look at how we are doing this in our own Catholic schools, and also in our parishes.
While Bishop Barnes did not use these exact lines from Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation, Joy of the Gospel, they more than adequately sum up what he, too, was expressing to us:
“The best incentive for sharing the Gospel comes from contemplating it with love, lingering over its pages and reading it with the heart. If we do not feel an intense desire to share the love of Jesus we need to pray insistently he will once more touch our hearts. There is nothing more precious we can give to others.”
This is what we must all do now with joy in our hearts - go out into the world with the Good News. We must be mission. We must be love.
Anne Alhadef is a fourth/fifth grade instructional aide and campus minister at Sacred Heart Academy in Redlands.